The Ben & Jerry’s Foundation has announced it will cease operations at the end of the year after its corporate parent, Magnum Ice Cream Co., cut off funding and evicted its three staffers. This decision leaves $600,000 in annual grants to Vermont organizations and 40 years of the ice cream brand’s progressive mission in jeopardy, pending a judge’s ruling.
Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, stated that this move represents Magnum’s attempt to “destroy the social values of Ben & Jerry’s.” The Vermont-based ice cream brand has been engaged in a legal dispute with its parent company, Magnum Ice Cream Co.—a spinoff of Unilever—since November 2024. Ben & Jerry’s alleges that the corporation has overstepped its authority, leading to the ousting of the CEO and interference with the brand’s political stances. The core legal question is whether the parent company has the right to restructure governance and withhold funds from the foundation.
Unilever, which owns the ice cream business, audited the foundation, the philanthropic arm of Ben & Jerry’s, in April 2025. The audit identified conflicts of interest and a lack of governance and financial control. Liz Bankowski, president of the foundation’s board of trustees, confirmed that Unilever withheld funding late last year and ordered foundation staff to vacate their South Burlington office by July 15 due to these governance issues. Consequently, the foundation’s leadership joined the ongoing lawsuit, initiated by the ice cream brand’s independent board, in an effort to secure continued funding. The lawsuit is currently before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
While the foundation’s leadership characterizes the shutdown as a necessary response to the funding cut, an unnamed spokesperson for Magnum stated that the decision to close is “entirely down to the Trustees and their decision to ignore the findings of an independent audit and failure to put in place basic good governance; much to our dismay.” Bankowski countered that the foundation adopted a conflict of interest policy since the audit, but the ultimate demand was to change the board to restore funding.
Cohen dismissed the audit’s findings as “a bunch of trumped-up charges,” asserting that the foundation has been independently audited annually without any illegal or unethical activities being found. Since Ben & Jerry’s sold its ice cream business to Unilever in 2000, the corporation has contributed $60 million to the foundation. For 40 years, the foundation has supported the brand’s progressive mission by providing financial aid to social justice organizations nationwide. The foundation, which lacks an endowment, relies on annual funding from its parent company as stipulated in the merger contract.
A significant portion of this funding, approximately $600,000 annually, supports Vermont organizations such as Migrant Justice, an immigrant farmworker rights group, and Outright Vermont, an LGBTQ+ nonprofit. Rebecca Golden, the foundation’s director of programs with 34 years of service, highlighted the foundation’s unique role in funding initiatives that many other organizations do not support. Golden is one of the three staffers who were ordered to vacate the office by Wednesday.
The Magnum spokesperson, while not directly addressing the vacate order, noted that foundation leaders “took the position that its staff are not Ben & Jerry’s employees, despite utilising Ben & Jerry’s offices and systems.” Golden described the potential shutdown as an “enormous loss” that would impact not only the supported organizations but also Ben & Jerry’s employees who take pride in the foundation’s work. She expressed that the past year has been emotionally taxing, with staff now entering an “acceptance phase.”
The Magnum spokesperson indicated that philanthropic work would continue, stating the company is “firmly committed to funding a grant-giving foundation, supported by appropriate governance controls to ensure it is living by its values.” However, Cohen expressed skepticism about Magnum’s commitment to upholding the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation’s values, questioning what entities they would fund and suggesting they would likely avoid organizations challenging the status quo.
The foundation’s leaders cited their support for Migrant Justice during a period when the organization considered boycotting Ben & Jerry’s as an example of their dedication to social justice. This support came after immigrant farmworkers raised concerns about working conditions at farms supplying the ice cream brand, leading Ben & Jerry’s to join a program aimed at improving fair working conditions.
Political activism has been a cornerstone of the Ben & Jerry’s brand since its inception. In a May filing as part of the ongoing lawsuit, Ben & Jerry’s accused Magnum of undermining its social justice mission to “censor, intimidate and purge” the company’s independent board, which Cohen stated was established to protect its progressive values. Late last year, three board members, including one who had been critical of Israel, were removed after the parent corporation implemented new governance practices. Magnum, in its motion to dismiss the lawsuit, argues it holds ultimate authority and that the brand’s social mission must remain nonpartisan.
Cohen, who is not directly involved in the lawsuit, has launched a “free Ben & Jerry’s” campaign, gathering approximately 160,000 petition signatures demanding that Magnum sell Ben & Jerry’s to “a group of values-aligned investors.” He concluded, “The very values-led business model that built Ben & Jerry’s into this amazing, phenomenal brand is the very thing that Magnum is currently destroying.”
